What role(s) did your later educational experiences play in where you are now academically? What curricular and extracurricular experiences shaped your outlook, goals, and abilities? Who were your most influential teachers and/or coaches? Why?
The experience of working with students from Old Dominion University (ODU) at the end of my first graduate year plays a crucial role in my academic life. It was not only a part-time job but also a required course for me. My advisor was the person in charge. Her job was to make a plan for the whole program and communicate with professors form ODU. She involved me into the program in hope of that I could put what I have learned into practice. My job was to offer these students a general understanding of Chinese. Most of them never learned Chinese before they came to China. I was deeply grateful because what I have learned in these five days was more than that in the past one year.
Language learners are person first, students second. Before the first class, my advisor wanted to have a look at my lesson plans before class. I prepared lesson plans very carefully so I thought there would not be big problems about them. However, I still spent nearly five hours in my advisor’s office in improving them. She suggested me change part of language drills into authentic communication because nobody liked to practice a word five times, not knowing how to use it and the content of it. She also advised me to teach how to say “where is the bathroom?” in the first class. I adopted her suggestion. From my experience of life, I know in real cases “Where is the bathroom” was more useful than “Nice to meet you”. What’s more, we prepared some potable note books for them. On the first page of it wrote their English names and Chinese names and second page the address of their apartment in English and Pinyin (Chinese pronunciation), in case of that they got lost or take a taxi. I complained we were more baby sisters than teachers and we took too many responsibilities. My advisor said “Not at all! You are doing something good to yourself, young teacher! On the one hand, all of these are what a good language teacher is supposed to do. On the other hand, If you treat your students as person first, they will response in a human way. If you treat them as learning machines, they will torture your mind by making you feel your job is boring and meaningless.”
When I look back, all of these teachers whom I thought had profound influences on me share a common character. They treated me people first, a student second. They tolerated the mistakes that I made during the process of learning because nobody is flawless in the world; they were proud of what I achieved because they know I am not superman and I managed it with my efforts. Now I will be a teacher soon and it is time for me to put what I have learned from my teachers into practice.
I am a strong believer in student-centered teaching philosophy and have interests in learning how to tailor my teaching plans according to the needs of students. I read books about the needs of learners, the motivation of learning, learning styles and so on to know more about my future students rather than to be a linguistic. I always bear it in mind that only I make them believe what they will learn in my class will help them live a better life will they be well prepared to take in the knowledge.
What role(s) did your later educational experiences play in where you are now academically? What curricular and extracurricular experiences shaped your outlook, goals, and abilities? Who were your most influential teachers and/or coaches? Why?
The experience of working with students from Old Dominion University (ODU) at the end of my first graduate year plays a crucial role in my academic life. It was not only a part-time job but also a required course for me. My advisor was the person in charge. Her job was to make a plan for the whole program and communicate with professors form ODU. She involved me into the program in hope of that I could put what I have learned into practice. My job was to offer these students a general understanding of Chinese. Most of them never learned Chinese before they came to China. I was deeply grateful because what I have learned in these five days was more than that in the past one year.
Language learners are person first, students second. Before the first class, my advisor wanted to have a look at my lesson plans before class. I prepared lesson plans very carefully so I thought there would not be big problems about them. However, I still spent nearly five hours in my advisor’s office in improving them. She suggested me change part of language drills into authentic communication because nobody liked to practice a word five times, not knowing how to use it and the content of it. She also advised me to teach how to say “where is the bathroom?” in the first class. I adopted her suggestion. From my experience of life, I know in real cases “Where is the bathroom” was more useful than “Nice to meet you”. What’s more, we prepared some potable note books for them. On the first page of it wrote their English names and Chinese names and second page the address of their apartment in English and Pinyin (Chinese pronunciation), in case of that they got lost or take a taxi. I complained we were more baby sisters than teachers and we took too many responsibilities. My advisor said “Not at all! You are doing something good to yourself, young teacher! On the one hand, all of these are what a good language teacher is supposed to do. On the other hand, If you treat your students as person first, they will response in a human way. If you treat them as learning machines, they will torture your mind by making you feel your job is boring and meaningless.”
When I look back, all of these teachers whom I thought had profound influences on me share a common character. They treated me people first, a student second. They tolerated the mistakes that I made during the process of learning because nobody is flawless in the world; they were proud of what I achieved because they know I am not superman and I managed it with my efforts. Now I will be a teacher soon and it is time for me to put what I have learned from my teachers into practice.
I am a strong believer in student-centered teaching philosophy and have interests in learning how to tailor my teaching plans according to the needs of students. I read books about the needs of learners, the motivation of learning, learning styles and so on to know more about my future students rather than to be a linguistic. I always bear it in mind that only I make them believe what they will learn in my class will help them live a better life will they be well prepared to take in the knowledge.
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